Roy Montgomery: Classic or Dud etc etc

Bought the new issue of the Wire for the Roy article, probably first time buying an issue since the mid 90s!

No offense to the Wire, I just don't buy magazines much.

As the Sun Sets from Tropic of Anodyne is my theme song for 2017.

aaaaaaand new album:

https://grapefruitrecordclub.com/products/montgomery-roy-suffuse-lp-with-bonus-second-lp-option-pre-order

Called "Suffuse" and it's got tracks he wrote for a handful of guest vocalists, most of whom seem to have taken him up on the offer!

1) Apparition (with Haley Fohr)
2) Rainbird (with She Keeps Bees)
3) Outsider Love Ballad No 1 (with Katie Von Schleicher)
4) Mirage (with Purple Pilgrims)
5) Sigma Octantis (with Julianna Barwick)
6) Landfall (with Liz Harris)

There's a bonus LP available with the vinyl edition which seems to have instantly sold out.

the bonus lp version cost like $52 fuck that shit

it's made from melted down copies of rarer, more expensive records

Haley Fohr!

It's a lovely record.

damn this is a great album!

Scenes From the South Island is so fucking good

^^^^^

I ended up really loving Suffuse as well

And not only is it so fucking good, it's going to be available again soon!

https://grouper.bandcamp.com/album/scenes-from-the-south-island

wait, that song is Nor'wester Head On? I always thought that was Winding It Out in the High Country!

Liz's song on Suffuse is phenomenal

Also forgot to mention, After Nietzsche, the album he released this year with Emma Johnston, is amazing. Emma Johnston has a Liz Fraseresque sorta vocal style (or someone I can't quite place, along the lines of maybe Black Rose or Ordo Equitum Solis... especially on the title track) that totally lights up Roy Montgomery's guitar work, so good.

So the vinyl re-release of Scenes from the South Island has a nice 3-part 16-minute suite as side 4, called Hollyford Valley. Recorded in 2018, not in 1995 with the rest of the album. It's a nice Faith-era Cure sort of sound, a kinda black and white Primary. Instrumental, pretty. So happy he keeps releasing new stuff.

Roy's been posting new tracks on his YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF5NZfRf_kt7ff9rG4la9ig

!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ToEdQiybc

Whole lot more coming in early 2021
https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/roy-montgomery-40th-anniversary-2021-lp-series

I like how he is casually dropping four-album sets these days like it’s NBD

He posted a new cover on his YouTube channel too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpzshwncFw0

new album is gorgeous

New album "That Best Forgotten Work" is a vocal album! I love his doomy voice, has Roy sung much on his solo albums? The ones I've checked out have been exclusively instrumental.

On and off. Love the singing. Always

"Suffuse" had female guest vocalists singing vocal parts he'd written

buy his singles comp 324 E. 13th Street #7, it has plenty of songs with vocals!

Don't forget the Dadamah and Dissolve albums!

The singles comp as mentioned with the swallows single and Something Else Again? One of my favorites.

I wrote this: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/29/cult-guitarist-roy-montgomery-on-flying-nun-grief-and-embracing-mistakes-its-an-existential-thing. Camera Melancholia is magnificent.

Truly.

oh! this must be live on Spotify soon so I can listen at work... got the vinyl in the mail a few days ago

(also great article!)

Thank you!

Lovely article/interview - I'm a NZer and I'd never heard some of those biographical details before. Glad he's got the Dry Cleaning support slot here - hoping that + the new Matthew Goody Flying Nun book will give him a bit more local attention.

Nice interview, thanks for sharing. I picked up RMHQ earlier this year and greatly enjoyed it. Spun all four discs on repeat on a day trip through a national park in the Pacific Northwest.

The one song with vocals is truly the most beautiful thing I've heard in ages. Doesn't sound like it but makes me think of Nick Cave's Distant Sky, another heartbreakingly melancholic elegy featuring guest female vocals.

saw him play in the Futana Chapel today

i'm from the same place he is and i was a fan of his instrumental 90s stuff years ago but haven't really been able to get into the what i've heard since he's started releasing again. the was pretty nice, particularly the opening omnichord piece. might have to check the new one out. he also mentioned that he's putting a book of verse next year and read some of it out which was pretty hard to watch/listen to but suprisingly good and pretty poignant.

revisting this album tonight for the first time in a long time. probably my favourite vocal track of his (along the Wire cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHjMRi7lu9s